This is the final work in Mike and Neil's story. I haven't yet worked out how many parts it will split into, but it's all written. Diane Sutton, formerly Owens, takes over the narration as the SCRU goes after Nigel.
Please be aware the direct reference is made to suicide here, along with particularly nasty harassment.
CLOSING DOORS
CHAPTER 1
Candice was out with Jon taking a statement in yet another fraud case that had spun off from the Evans building fiddles heap, the gift that simply refused to stop giving, but the rest of us were in. Sammy was in feral mode, which triggered my interest, as it always did. He waved Lexie forward.
“You have the floor. DC Doyle. Go for it”
Lexie stepped over to our first newsprint stand, raising the cover.
“Our informant here has come via Enfys Hiatt-Edwards, who looked after us in North Wales”
Rhys asked, quite politely, if that was the gay girl, and Lexie nodded.
“Yup. You may also remember the case of assault and abduction a few years ago. Four teenagers kidnapped another, locked her in an old shed in a quarry?”
There were a few murmurs of agreement amid the nods, and Lexie pointed to one of the photos on the stand.
“That is Alys Hiatt-Edwards. She’s married to Enfys, and she was the victim in that case. She was only discovered, by accident, by this man. He is Neil Strachan, and he is our informant in this new case, as well as a secondary victim. He is also, from before the event, a family friend of Alys and Enfys, to both families. Be aware that he is neurodivergent, borderline Asperger’s, and a pro photographer, as was his wife”
Oh fuck. I looked across to my hubby, and his mouth was in that familiar tight line. Lexie was continuing, though I could still see the cracks under her smooth façade. This was going to be another pile of ordure.
“This is Neil and his wife Madeleine, Maddy, on their wedding day. They ran a photography business in Cheshire, and Sammy has info on the local force issues. Maddy was, well, the same sort of woman as Annie, Debbie and so on: trans. That was the source of the offence, or rather its starting point”
Ellen raised her hand, in her usual way.
“I am not expecting a nice answer to this one, Lexie. Wife dead?”
There were more cracks showing, but Lexie’s voice was still steady.
“Off the top of a multi-storey car park, Ell. Verdict was suicide”
Ellen leant forward, face hard.
“Can we take it that she was encouraged in her actions? Like that arsehole of an uncle we nicked at St David’s was trying?”
“Absolutely. Neil had to leave the country, and, well, while he was away…”
She took a deep breath before revealing another sheet of pictures, this time of a slightly overweight man, clearly fond of Barbour jackets and brick-red trousers.
“This is Nigel Forbes. The following description is my own: chaser, abuser, stalker, distributor of hateful communications. Neil has a massive file of stuff that someone will need to collect officially, but he is a very thorough man, so here we have copies of the notes, including some that Maddy had ripped up, photographs of Mr Forbes and his car—any guesses as to type?”
It was Alun this time.
“I’d normally have said ‘a Beemer’, but the way he’s dressed---Landrover or Range?”
Lexie lifted the sheet to show ‘Nigel’, this time wearing a flat cap, next to his car.
“Range Rover, of course”
“Bloody flash bastard. When do we get the rest of the evidence?”
“We already have it, as I said. The originals are in plastic bags for SOCO. Not by me; Neil is, as I said, a very thorough Aspy. Any initial questions before we start on the copies?”
Ellen once again.
“What’s the score with Neil? I mean, is he our sort of personality?”
Lexie flipped back to the wedding photo.
“Oh, most definitely. He is in so much pain it leaks out, and, well: going back to the start. Enfys has an uncle, one Michael Rhodes. When we met Enfys, Alys was in Australia for her University practical placement year—she does ecology. That’s where this uncle lives. I gather he’s widowed. He’s also very close to Neil, and he was the one that alerted Enfys, as he thinks Neil was planning some sort of confrontation with our man”
My husband was next.
“Pardon me if I am smelling some shit about this one, but with what you say you have in terms of evidence, why didn’t the local force pick up on it?”
Lexie shrugged, but it was obviously for show.
“That was apparently what triggered the uncle’s warning to Enfys, which is why she got Neil to speak to me. It stinks, absolutely reeks. This Nigel Forbes must have some sort of influence. Could be funny handshakes, could just be money, or maybe blackmail, which would fit his style. No real idea, though. Sammy?”
Our boss was most definitely in Fully Feral mode.
“As you will remember, we have connections up that way. I spoke with Bev Williams, and he spoke to Mr Sedgewick, who is most concerned that yet another unpleasant case in his force area appears to have avoided a proper examination. Accordingly, we as a review unit have been booked out to Cheshire at their request, rather than us asking them if they mind us trampling all over their turf. Oh: Neil is also a friend of Debbie Wells, Gemma and the rest of that crew. In other words, he’s ours, he’s family. By the book, then, and Lexie is obviously out of the loop for now. I will leave you to divvy up as appropriate, but I would like the original proposed exhibits ASAP for forensics.
“I will leave you with something Lexie explained to me, just as a clue to Forbes’ personality. He groomed Maddy for some time. Had her eating out of his hand, from the account. Got her into bed, got what he wanted, then called her a freak and threatened to puke on her if she didn’t cover herself up, before walking out”
He took a couple of slow breaths, then grinned, still utterly Feral Sammy.
“I know, I know. We get to meet the loveliest people, but we also get the chance to bang the fuckers away. Let’s get this one done properly, okay?”
I couldn’t disagree with that sentiment.
The team followed its usual assumptions, at least in my case, and I was handed a box of DVDs to work through in recognition that I wasn’t that different to this ‘Neil’, in all honesty. so I duly picked up my headset and went to our standalone for a viewing marathon. I wasn’t sure if there would be audio, but if there wasn’t, I would wall off the office with sound from my mp3 player. As I picked up the box holding far too many discs, Blake patted my arm.
“Set your alarm for four, love. That way we can collect the boy wonder from your parents at a reasonable time. Put your phone in your pocket so you’ll feel it as it goes off”
He walked off to start on another aspect of the case while Lexie did the one thing she could contribute to our work and handed out a round of hot drinks before settling down to plough through a disclosure schedule for an unrelated review. That had been my job before this one landed in our laps, and I didn’t know whether to be grateful or not. Time would tell.
It did exactly that, as my alarm did its job, dragging me back into the world. I looked at my case working book, surprised to see how many notes I had made as I’d searched for a pattern. Something was nagging at me, but it wouldn’t show itself properly. Blake appeared, jacket already on, and handed me my own.
“We’re off to gather the offspring and return any body parts he may have taken as trophies. Same again tomorrow, folks!”
We stopped over at my parents’ place that night, and I am sure I startled my husband when I sat bolt upright in bed at two thirty in the morning with a reasonably loud “Shit!”
“Umf, you okay, love?”
“Sorry. Something just clicked Going to write it down before it goes again—cover your eyes; I won’t be long”
I turned on the light and found a supermarket receipt in my jacket pocket, scribbling down a quick note to myself that I hoped would make sense when the morning finished arriving.
A decent breakfast, of course, a kiss to each parent and then drop Rhod at the school gates with a note for his teacher. One of the advantages of having such a large number of young women as friends is that I had a seemingly endless supply of childminders, that day’s being Tiff, so I could plan properly, and my note was almost burning a hole in my pocket.
“Get me in, love. Some things I really need to look at again”
Candice was back in, and Blake told me later that when she saw how I completely missed the coat hook, leaving my jacket on the floor, she had simply picked it up for me, hung it properly and then started making me a drink. My team understands me.
Back into the video discs, and what I wanted was the feed from the camera that apparently sat to the left of the shop door. White Range Rover… two of them in the feed… which one was Nigel’s… Oh. Right.
I noted down disc numbers and time and date stamps as I worked through, so I might see any pattern in them, but it was the cars that I was staring at. I locked the screen before calling Sammy.
“What you got, Di?”
“I don’t know, exactly, Sammy. I just know it’s wrong. And, to be honest, if it is what I suspect, bloody illegal. Have a look”
I brought up an image of one of the white wankpanzers.
“Personalised plate, Sammy. Meant to be his name, using ‘40’ to get a pun on ‘Forbes’, see it?”
“He’s stretching that one a bit, Di”
“Well, wanker is as wanker does. Sorry; bit sleepless last night. Now, look at the other car. See anything?”
“What am I looking at?”
“Two things. First, the plate. What’s it missing?”
“Oh! Right. You’re talking about the maker’s name and the UK marker, I take it?”
“Yup. Now, have a look at that one’s rear bumper, down to the left of the plate. Mud mark?”
“Got it”
“This is the other car, same angle”
“Fuck! The cheeky bastard’s cloned it, hasn’t he?”
“I do believe so. Same car, two sets of plates”
Alun was also looking over my shoulder by then, along with Rob. My scruffy friend was chuckling.
“What does the fucker do for work, Di?”
“Um, no idea. Been stuck in this since the job came in”
“Well, I am going to float an idea here. Where’s he live, Sammy?”
“East Cheshire”
“That fits. That’s the same car, both plates. I would suggest that our friend has two bits to his job, one of which involves a lot of driving, and he doesn’t like speed cameras. He might even be going as far afield as the M6 toll road. Vanity plate for driving around where he’s known, cloned plate for avoiding fines and tolls. I will make a small bet with myself that he’s got tints on his windows. Di?”
“Looks very like it, Al”
“They will be illegal as well, then. Stops him being recognised with the wrong plates. What an arsehole!”
Sammy was laughing now.
“Say what you think, lad!”
“Don’t I always? This gives us an in, if we need one, for a traffic stop. Not a clue how that helps us right now, but, well”
Sammy stood a little straighter.
“No, mate. You are forthright, but this sounds a bit more direct than normal. What’s up? Missus okay?”
Alun slumped slightly.
“As well as she can be, I suppose, but it’s not her. Did you realise the cunt was still sending notes even after the woman’s death?”
I turned in my seat, feeling a little ill in advance of what I knew was coming.
“No. How bad are they?”
He walked over to his desk, returning with a plastic-wrapped photocopy.
“This is possibly the worst. I say ‘possibly’, because there are more I haven’t looked at yet”
It was a criminal cliché, the note formed from bits of print that had clearly been cut from a newspaper or magazine.
‘Dog goes woof
Duck goes quack
Cow goes moo
Freak goes splat’
As I handed it back, I realised my hand was shaking.
“Sammy?”
“Yes. Yes you can”
“I can what?”
“Go and collect the originals. This is most definitely a case I want, I NEED, a result from. Alun? Can you come with me for a bit?”
“What are we doing?”
“A very brief interim report to Mr Sedgewick, via Bev. I want to stir some pigeons, and together with Di’s little nugget, this should work. Do your tie up, for now”
We got the formal ‘Go’ from the Super the following afternoon, presumably after he had cleared up the pecking order with Sedgewick and the Cheshire brass. Sammy was absolutely in full focus.
“Di, I want you to take Candice for the bags. She does fluffy better than you—shut it, Blondie. You know full well you can. Take a works car, and make sure the stuff gets locked away properly. Some of the court boxes, the ones with padlocks, they’ll do. And Blake?”
“Yes?”
“Sorry, but this is going to be a long job. Disclosure schedule is going to be a sod, but the ‘marked as’ one is going to take even longer. Sort a couple of rooms out, ladies. If you can’t get the lot done on the first day, you can do the rest after a night’s sleep. If you do manage to clear it on day one, I do not want you driving back that evening”
Candice started to object, but Sammy cut her short.
“Don’t care what your big boy might have planned, but you haven’t seen some of the stuff Alun and Rhys have already identified. I will not have you driving when your stress bucket’s full to the brim”
“He’s on nights”
“Who? Big boy?”
“Yes”
“Nothing lost, then. Saloon car, not an estate, okay? Nothing gets lost. I’ve looked at the hotels available already, and there’s a Purple Palace not far from his place, which is within budget. Cheshire may be paying, but taking the piss would be rude. LEXIE?”
“Yeah?”
“Could you confirm your informant is able to meet, and get a preferred day and time”
“Wilco. I’ve already run it past Humint”
“What did they say?”
“Reasonably happy, as long as I step back. My previous is with Enfys, not Neil, and I did mention that the whole team was sort of in on that bit. I met Neil, though, off duty, so I am out”
“Thanks, mate. Have you two got…?”
He started to laugh, and we had to wait until he had finished.
“Sorry, but I was about to ask if you had cameras sorted, then I remembered Neil’s job. Get some data cards from SOCO. As long as we have the chain of evidence tight, we can snap stuff wherever suits, but he might have something else you can’t uplift, so Boy Scout motto applies”
Three days later and Candice and I were finally on the road. It was a profoundly boring drive, across the Severn to the M5 and then the M6, and I was reminded of that long drive over to Gatwick with Charlie, or the others for those church events. At least those had held a promise of some sort of reward, whereas this trip felt more like that one with Jon to interview Harry Bowles.
“You all right, Di?”
“Sorry?”
“You just shuddered”
“Ah. Sorry, Bad memory”
“We both have more than a few of those. You haven’t said what was in the bundles. I’ll be seeing them in a while, so a heads-up might be a good idea”
“Ah. Don’t really want… You’re driving.”
“TLDR?”
“Er… Remember Chrissy? Her arsehole of an uncle?”
“What, that shit about 42 per cent?”
“Sort of. Where that was urging an action—”
“Fucking suicide, Di. Let’s be honest”
“Yes, exactly. This was sort of… post facto rather than prior, if you get me”
“Not gloating and shit?”
“Gloating. And shit. Alun picked up that pile of nightmares, for his sins”
“Ah. Good job I had Jonny Boy out with me, then”
“Yeah. It was him I was thinking of, that shudder. Done a few long drives, but they’ve been for a good thing. Charlie’s hospital stay, Debbie’s wedding, that sort of thing. The time with Jon was when we went to interview Arthur Henry Bowles”
“Serial killer? Cooper victim?”
“The very one. I suspect Sammy had that in mind when he insisted we get a hotel. That time, I made Jon stop over. We’d probably have crashed if he’d tried to drive straight back”
“Understood… Now, I am going to go straight to the Purple Palace and get us checked in, if you don’t mind”
“Can’t get into our rooms till two o’clock”
“Yeah, but we can confirm them, and stop the bastards selling them on. I think we are going to need as much time as possible for this, and I do not want to have to dip out before an evening deadline. Agreed?”
She was absolutely right, so after a round of “Yes, we DO know we can’t get in before two, but we are here, we’ll be late in this evening, and we want our territory marked without having to pee on it”, we were on the last, local leg.
The shop looked rather attractive, a three storey building with several attractive sample prints on display in the ground floor windows, but I was paying more attention to the cameras, at least the ones I could spot. There were a couple of ‘architectural features’ that I suspected were more optically functional than usual, for example, but I had no idea as to when they had been installed. Candice led, for now.
“Mr Strachan?”
He was a big man, but not fat, very like my husband in build, but lacking so much of his poise. Blake always seemed to be on the balls of his feet, ready to react, while Neil gave the impression of folding inwards. He looked up from his till, and smiled, and that was when I saw exactly what Maddy must have seen.
An utterly open face, with the most amazingly gentle hazel eyes; a little wave of hatred towards Forbes swept over me.
“Are you the police? I mean, Lexie’s friends, and Enfys’s?”
“That’s us. I’m Detective Constable Warren, and this is Detective Sergeant Sutton. Um, Candice---Diane, or Di”
“I’m Neil. Thank you for coming. Have you spoken to Mike yet?”
A little flicker from Candice, but she simply went with the flow.
“Not yet, Neil. We ‘re here to do our best to help with your loss, for now. We’ll move on to Mike once we’ve dealt with that. I am afraid this is going to be a long job”
“I gave Lexie copies of everything I had”
“And they have helped immensely, Neil. We already have some lines of enquiry underway—no, I can’t say what. But we have to sign and list all that you have for us, so it’s going to be a long day, or days. Where do you want us?”
“If you are here for days, where are you staying?”
I recognised Candice’s laugh as forced, but then I knew her.
“Premier Inn, Neil. We call it the Purple Palace---what have I said?”
His face had fallen at her words, but he dug hard for a smile.
“Please come in, and I’ll shut up shop. If you had asked, we… I have two spare bedrooms”
I returned his smile, hopefully in a more genuine fashion than his offering.
“That would have been handy, Neil, but we have to be careful of perceptions. That’s why Lexie is no longer involved directly. Now, something about our choice of hotel disturbed you—sorry, it’s the way I am. Goes with the job. Is there something we should know about the place? Should we look for somewhere else?”
He shook his head, but it wasn’t delivered with any emphasis.
“I don’t know anything about the hotel, Diane. It’s just something Maddy used to say. When we first met, she was riding a little motor scooter. She called it the ‘Purple Pixie’. Little bit of triggering. I’ll be fine. I’ll just do the locks and shutter, then I’ll show you upstairs”
The shutter in question was an electrically powered roller, looking extremely robust, and the locks were multiple. Candice watched the process, eyes narrowed.
“What if you get a fire, Neil?”
“Push bar door through here. This is the exhibition room”
He waved at an archway that revealed a room entirely without furniture, but with multiple spotlights.
“We met at one of her exhibitions. One of the big differences between us, really. I sold my pictures almost entirely over the internet, but she had proper events. We…”
He went away from us once again, eyes damp, before excavating that very worn smile once again.
“Our first joint event was after we came back from a trip to Durham, and a short visit to Northumberland. She did a lot of colour shots, I stayed mostly in monochrome. It was very successful. We… Come upstairs, and I will put the kettle on”
There were framed photographs everywhere, and the subjects were incredibly varied. On one wall, for example, was a black and white silhouette of a naked woman lying on her side, and next to it a full-colour shot of Enfys doing something extremely precarious on very smooth-looking rock. Elsewhere were pictures of buildings, stalactites, rock faces, even fossils, and every single one was perfectly sharp and, to be honest, fascinating in the quantity of detail revealed. My odd mind was very nearly sucked into them, a visual siren song. One particular study, in colour, appeared to show nothing but overlapping flakes of rust, the edges almost fractal in the way they wrapped back on themselves, and…
“Di?”
“Um. Sorry. Got a bit distracted”
Neil gave me a surprisingly direct look.
“I have a whole collection of those. They’re from the Angel of the North..”
He was off into a flow of excessive detail once again, and I revised my opinion, because I couldn’t decide just then whether he was on the edge, or already over it and falling free.
‘Freak goes splat’
My personal and professional dislike of ‘Nigel’ was hitting a peak, but I suspected it was actually one of those false summits, where something even higher and nastier was lurking just over the crest.
He had tea, in a proper pot, plus all the trimmings, such as strainer, sugar bowl and milk jug. He asked our preferences, poured, smiled, explained that it was the way Maddy had done things.
And wept.
We spent two nights in the Purple Palace in the end, as there was so much to catalogue. We finally set off back for Cardiff with a boot almost full of potential exhibits, and a surprising quantity of information about a man called Michael Rhodes.
Our forensic people and SOCO went to town on our bagged originals, which was a delight, but we already had them well-trained, if not actually house-broken. The main problem was a simple one: there were no prior offences recorded against Forbes, so we had no DNA on record for comparisons.
Alun had a word with Sammy yet again, on a complete hunch. I collared him in the greasy for a debrief (or rather a ‘Me Sarge you DC tell me what you’re up to!’). He was smugger than I had ever seen him, which was a difficult hill to climb.
“Simples, Di. First thing was to check where the clone plate lives, legally like”
“We already did that, Al”
“Yeah, but you didn’t trawl the street for any possible links, did you?”
“Sorry?”
“What does our current favourite turd do, Di?”
“He’s a business efficiency manager, whatever the fuck that is”
“He is. And his employers have a website. And the website has testimonials”
“And?”
“The cloned plate belongs to the HR lead for a company that Nigel Forbes did a job for”
“Oh!”
He did the nail-polishing mime, before simply saying, “And…”
“Oh, stop teasing!”
All the playfulness dropped away like unwanted ballast.
“I got Bev to authorise a bit of snidery, and paid a visit to West Mids force, just on the off chance. Home Alone for Clone is York, but you’ll remember I said he might be using the M6 toll road. I got the Brummies to do a trawl for serial non-payers, and guess who came up?”
“I am guessing it wasn’t the real plate. And so?”
“Had another word with the ‘Appen as like’ lot, and they have had complaints galore from the owner of the real plate”
“What do you have for us, Al? Summed up?”
He sighed, putting his cup down and staring into it for a while before starting again, eyes still down.
“You’re not the only one who has connections, Di. And Lexie isn’t the only one who kept in touch up North. That Sue, she has been amazing with my Lyn. I have met Alys a few times as well…”
He tossed back the last of his tea.
“Cold. Arse. Di?”
“Yeah?”
“No hyperbole here, okay? This cunt took a man’s wife from him, all for shitz’n’lolz. Here I am, not knowing how much longer I will still have my own lover. Pardon me if I get a little focussed. I rang Alys once Lexie had given us the case, and she gave me her own opinion of Neil. Sunshine out of arses isn’t how it is, but she loves him deeply, and that’s a recommendation that I can’t ignore. I want this fucker, Di”
“What have you got so far, love?”
He looked me in the eye, finally.
“I have got the fact that, right now, he is still using the toll road, or at least that number plate is. We get the right time, he hits the ANPR, and we prime West Mids to stop him. Enough offences there to get his DNA lifted, and of course we’ll get a fucking match. Once that’s done, we get to talk to him. Our way”
Kissing a colleague in the greasy wasn’t the done thing, so I simply squeezed his hand, hoping I could draw some of his pain.
Back in the office, though, he was more than ready to brief the rest of our team, and as ever, he either found his irreverent sense of humour again, or forced a reasonable facsimile of it. We ended up far more upbeat than we had been, when faced with a pile of information we couldn’t turn into evidence, at least not so far.
Two weeks later, and the call came in from West Mids traffic.
“Hello, can I speak to Sergeant Sutton, please?”
“Speaking”
“Hello, Sarge. I’m Dev Choudhury from West Midlands Traffic support. You tasked us with a stop. White Range Rover?”
“Ah! What have you got?”
“Pretty straightforward, from our end. Cloned plates to evade the tolls, and more gob than a gobby thing”
“Sorry?”
“Mister Forbes is looking to stand as a councillor for Reform and we are all part of a conspiracy to destroy, et cetera. Oh, and he’s a Freeman of the Land”
“Oh for fuck’s sake! Really?”
“Yup. Complete with ALL the usual shite about ‘personal conveyances’ and the Magna Carta”
“I am so sorry”
“Not at all. He’s wonderful entertainment value--- they always are. We had one a few months back, full of the usual crap about compacts with etc, and when he got convicted, he actually got a custodial, Went from cockiness to pleading in zero time. Begged for community service instead, and the head beak simply says that as he had clearly stated several times, that he doesn’t recognise the authority of the court, he might recognise the authority of a locked door”
“You got his DNA, though? Our man’s, that is?”
“Oh yes. Could I ask a serious question?”
“Go ahead”
“Okay. What the hell do you have him in the frame for?”
I let my breath out slowly. Play nicely, woman.
“Things that are neither nice nor legal, Dev. When I say ‘not nice’, I mean in capital letters”
“Oh. Oh fuck. Bad?”
“Very. If we get a result, I will let you know. Least we can do”
“Right. Gob shut time, then?”
“Please. Sorry”
“No need. He really needs a good slap, so I hope you have one coming”
“We hope so too. Can’t say any more”
We ended the call, and I looked round at those team members who were actually on an office day.
“West Mids have his DNA. And I think I have a route to Mr Sedgewick’s people”
Jon was nodding, which caught my eye, as he was far from stupid.
“Jonny boy?”
“Stop that, he says in reflex. Going to take a guess here, but it is an informed one”
“In what way?”
“I have found his main social media accounts
“Ah. Do tell”
“Prospective Deform councillor?”
“That’s him”
“Well, I traced his Bookface and Twix accounts, and then I redacted the identifying stuff, and took the results to our local experts for assessment. Um, Debbie and Marlene”
“What did they say?”
He didn’t actually turn pale, but his face clearly wanted to.
“Debbie, Marlene, aye? Obviously, they don’t know him, personally, but they recognised the type. Different words, but the same meaning: dangerous chaser. Marlene gave me a steer, and I found two more accounts, on two different trans hook-up sites”
“Next moves? I know you’ll have ideas, Jon”
“Yeah. I want to do some exploratory stuff with the admin on those dating sites, but I need an opener. He needs nicking first, and preferably charging. Nicking for Maddy, I mean. I ran the sites past Marlene, of course, and she is far from happy. Wanted to know if it was local, if she needed to warn anyone. I had to be a little… I had to lie, just a bit”
That was one of the hardest parts of the job, in my opinion. The urge to tell all to those on our side, those in the group being harmed, fought so hard against the absolute requirement to keep quiet until the bastard in question was suitably stitched up.
I ran the info past Sammy, and he face-palmed.
“Thise character references are just getting worse, Di. Anything come up with any of the crunchy links, such as Lodge membership, family in the local Force?”
“Not yet, but Jon’s still trawling”
“Good. I said this at the start, but this one has bent copper all over it. Like that Mersey View place”
“That bent sergeant? Yup. I really regret not being able to do a Cooper on that bastard”
“Most inconsiderate of him to snuff it before you could, I would say. Di?”
“Yes?”
“We can’t give that closure thing to everyone. It’s not a failing, not the fault of anyone on the team. It’s just the way things are. If we can’t do it for Mr Strachan, then nobody is to beat themselves up. Sadly, there’s always another case in the queue”
“I know. Still…”
He smiled this time, rather than grinned.
“I know, and I actually do have a collection of very heavy hints for our next major job. Not now, though: get this one weighed and paid before thinking about the one to follow.”
I did my best, but he was so right. I was someone who really couldn’t see such a case as a puzzle to solve without dwelling on its effects on the victims.
It was a week before Jon produced another little nugget, and it was a surprise in one way, because of Forbes’ ‘Freeman of the Land’ idiocy. Self-described FOTL are believers in any law being, in effect, a case of take it or leave it. They have some mangled phrase from the Magna Carta that speaks of something like ‘private conveyance’, and as a result they claim that motoring rules, such as speeding, vehicle emissions tax, parking restrictions and so on don’t apply to them. They are children in adult bodies screaming ‘Don’t wanna!’, and so their relationship with anyone in the police is unlikely to be a positive one. Why was there such reluctance to investigate Maddy’s death properly?
Jon’s little nugget had popped free from its coating of shit once he had done some serious social media digging, and it was rather like one of those Russian dolls. One account led to another, but each account also led to a widening array of ‘followers’ and ‘following’. Blake and Candice both volunteered to follow some of the links, but it was Jon himself that produced the key on some Reddit or whatever ‘substack’. I read the page description with disbelief.
“Sorry, people, but how the fuck do we end up with a sodding secret society in the police? I mean, we all know about funny handshakes, but this?”
Jon coughed,
“It’s ‘these’, Di. I have another group. This one’s run from outside the Job, but there are supposed to be serving coppers involved”
There was only one specific bit of common ground between the two groups, and that was virulent hatred of trans people. The sort of external body added in a load of other bigotries, but their core and original message was rabid transphobia. Jon showed me how one of the main people worked hand in hand with some extremely prominent far right people and groups, but I was beyond surprise, having gone from ‘are they linked to other hate groups?’ straight past ‘which ones?’ to ‘why aren’t they linked to this hate group?’
The answer to that one, of course, is usually explained by reference to Monty Python’s People’s Front of Judea and Judean People’s Front.
Splittists.
When the DNA was logged by the West Mids boys, we had our lab people compare it with what we’d got from Neil, and it gave us a match to one of the three strains present. We’d taken a sample from Neil for elimination, and the obvious assumption was that the second person out of the three detected must have been his poor dead wife, but number three was wearing a Barbour jacket and driving a cloned Range Rover. I took the results via Sammy to the Super, all neatly packaged by Ellen and Abby, and produced a very displeased piece of Brass.
“This is not good, Sammy. These… organisations. I believe we may need to do some house cleaning here, just in case. I will not have secret bloody societies in my Force! Um, the Chief Constable’s Force, but you take my point. How much has been shared outside your unit?”
Sammy looked at me to answer.
“Usual rules in play, sir. West Mids and North Yorks are aware of the cloning issue, and the Brummies in particular have guessed that there are other matters, but that’s as far as it goes”
“Good. Schtumm for now and…”
He took his glasses away to rub his eyes, then smiled wearily.
“There is more than enough here to convict Forbes, in my view, at least on the harassment front. That will be for Cheshire to lead on, as is the case with what I consider to be corruption. Before I send this over to them, did you manage to extract any actual names of serving officers?”
I nodded.
“What ranks, Diane?”
“Three Constables and, er, and an Inspector. Jon knows his way around the internet”
“Any of them in Traffic?”
“Two of the three PCs”
“Then we have an uplift to any action if they can be tied to the cloning in any way, and NO, Diane. This is a repeat of Evans and Pritchard, so no sympathy, Their actions were facultative”
“Sorry?”
“They made an active choice to be corrupt. I don’t care how they justify their odious beliefs, they made that choice knowing it was illegal. It goes with the Job, after all. Now, the other case I hinted at will be given to you next week. It is… what is that joke phrase your team uses for out of area jobs?”
“Oh, er, ‘Forn Parts’, sir”
“Ah, yes. This one will be extremely ‘forn’, if it goes ahead. There are some very delicate negotiations underway. Congratulations, by the way, for the package I am sending over to Chester. Your team never ceases to surprise me with what you are able to turn up. ‘Keep up the good work’ doesn’t even begin to cover things. I will be speaking to the Chief Constable on that issue later this week, and this is excellent ammunition”
So much of our work was like that. The days of local biker wars, of a dogfighter brandishing a rifle on a warehouse roof, they remained a hard but thankfully infrequent part of our work. After that first, awful, run of cases, we were now far more likely to be tasked to produce a package for someone else to do the hairy bits.
We still had to wade through shit and poison, though, in filtering the evidence, and more often than not we remained the interviewers of the cream of humanity. I settled down with the team over the next fortnight as we worked through our other cases, nothing at all coming either back from Cheshire or downstairs from Bev Williams.
At least the Evans building cases were pretty straightforward, the only variety in them coming from the odd case where the victim was stupid enough to admit paying cash to evade tax, or had a particularly interesting account of threatening behaviour. I didn’t get to hear any of them first hand, of course, due to that little bit of raping we had shared when I was sixteen, but as a manager I got to read the statements. Such a fulfilling role.
Far more interesting, to my surprise, was a luxury car exporter, because we actually had bills of lading for hundreds of cars sold and shipped to people abroad. The main problem with a rather lucrative business model was at the other end of the business, as the owners didn’t believe in paying list value for their stock of cars. They didn’t actually believe in paying anything, to be honest, so we were working on a long list of both thefts and robberies, the thefts being everything from simply driving off an unattended car, several times having been when the owner was in the till queue at a petrol station while the keys were still in the car, to burglaries aimed at lifting car keys. We were, as usual, covering them in historical order, so we hadn’t yet arrived at the days of special scanners from outside the owner’s house.
I had a wry smile each time I dug into a new theft file, as it brought to mind our dear friend Nigel, and his ‘two for one’ Range Rover. Several of the exported cars had left the country on cloned plates linked to similar legal vehicles.
Want to clone a plate for your car? Simply look for another of the same make, model, age and colour, note its licence plate number, and get some plates made up. Just remember not to copy a local plate, boys and girls. Even Nigel knew that one.
The fertiliser hit the rotating ventilation device three weeks after we had delivered our package for Cheshire, and it hit the news in a variety of forms.
The Heil and the Torygraph went with a ‘persecuted for their legally protected beliefs’ angle, both ignoring the small matter of colluding with a civilian to evade tolls and speeding penalties, plus loads of DARVO about needing to hide their beliefs because of ‘institutional capture by gender ideologues’, continued p94.
An equivalent angle was taken by a formerly reputable Sunday paper, which blamed it all on trans people insisting on continuing to breathe.
The BBC did mention the offences, but brought in a transphobe to give ‘balance’ to their report.
The Indy covered the crime/corruption part nicely, mentioned the transphobia in passing, and added a wonderfully funny associated piece on ‘Freemen of the Land’, with pictures of Nigel as illustration.
That, though, was what was reported on three ordinary coppers. What happened with the Inspector was of a different order.
There is a thing with police officers that they get done one way or the other in terms of sanctions, either disciplinary or the criminal route, because they are prone to lose more than a ‘civilian’ for a given offence. In everything but the most serious of offences, therefore, the penalty is one or the other. The coppers were dismissed for misconduct, but kept their pensions. The Inspector was charged with perverting the course of justice.
Bev gave me and Sammy that little nugget as Mr Sedgewick smiled almost as nastily as feral Sammy, who simply said “Privilege of rank, then”
Mr Sedgewick nodded.
“We wanted those three out ASAP. They’ve been booted for the secret society stuff, that’s all, but there is another case being built by our own intel, and that is related to ANPR. West Mids had put the clone on the system due to all the unpaid tolls. There is evidence of our former colleagues disregarding alerts issued by their in-vehicle terminals. Multiple times”
I gave Sammy a quick look before opening my mouth, and he nodded me to say my piece.
“Sir, well, I think it’s obvious that the chances of them encountering him on the road are pretty low. Prearranged meetings?”
“Yup. He lets them know when he’s off somewhere that might pick him up, so they arrange to follow him for a bit. Not that many traffic cars about these days, but seeing one already in place would put any others off”
“So the ANPR would be going ‘alert alert alert’ until he was out of their sight?’
“Or until they had both stopped so he could swap plates in plain sight”
Sedgewick sighed.
“They will be charged with that next week, and that should result in a custodial, plus a substantial financial hit to compensate the tolls people. They are not aware this is imminent. I do not feel there is a need for you to attend---er, sorry. That came out wrong, Diane. The corruption case will hit the Inspector as well, but her charge is directly related to Mrs Strachan’s case. Forbes will be arrested tomorrow, and it will be on charges of fraudulent evasion of tolls, a plethora of related motoring charges which will result in the seizure of his, what do you call them? Wankpanzer”
He suddenly grinned,
“Bevan told me, as well as the other term. ‘Yankpanzer’, I believe. As I was saying, our Freeman will be lifted tomorrow evening if he is at home, on those charges as well as one of criminal harassment, and the evidence you provided will be put to him as well as our soon to be former colleague. She will be asked why she made no mention of the voluminous evidence in the inquest into Mrs Strachan’s sad death”
He made a face, then continued, tone much harsher.
“The constables are idiots, Diane. Hateful bigots, of course, but I suspect that they are of a kind with others who simply feel a need to hate someone and seek an excuse to do so. Their version of perverting the course was in ignoring evidence, turning a blind eye to criminality. Our Inspector, on the other hand, actively suppressed evidence in a case that involved the death of an innocent woman. And yes: she is a personal friend of Forbes. Now…”
He leant forward, almost rubbing his hands with delight.
“We will be interviewing Forbes tomorrow at the earliest. You have a choice: you or Candice as second Officer. I don’t believe you are familiar with our HQ, but we have a similar set-up to that of Carlisle. This time, we can leave the sound on, so neither of you has to miss out on the amusement”
I won the coin toss with Candice.
The place wasn’t familiar, of course; the stench of Charlie Cooper was still hanging over every part of the City, but we were out at Winsford, not that far from Neil’s address. Mr Sedgewick had been cheeky, asking specifically if I could possibly visit Gemma’s before the trip, so both Candice and I were carrying several cardboard boxes of pastries in readiness. She had found a pub that did rooms in a place called Little Budworth, as there was sod-all in Winsford, and neither of us fancied a Purple Palace again. She was driving, a works car, because the public transport was also non-existent. At least the HQ had a decent amount of parking. We waited at the desk like good little girls until a civilian came to collect us, and off we went to Mr Sedgewick’s office, towing the consolidated evidence bundle in a non-small pull-along suitcase.
“Welcome, ladies! Alison is going to make us a tray of drinks—tea or coffee?”
We both opted for tea, and tried to ignore the stares Sedgewick was directing at our carrier bags. When our drinks arrived, though, Sedgewick thanked his PA before pointing at the boxes.
“Alison, could you do me a huge favour and invite the rest of your team to join us for a second?”
A minute later, we were joined by another six people, and our host was explaining.
“Ladies and gentlemen, these Officers are from Wales, working with us for a short while. You will remember the case of one Charles Cooper?”
There were a few mutters, one of which was the C-bomb, as well as a lot of angry expressions.
“Yes, that one. These are two of the team that broke that case. There is need to know in their business here, BUT there is also need to know in what they have brought with them. They have a friend who is an excellent pastry chef, and so I made a request for some samples. Please help yourselves, but leave some for the three of us”
His support staff descended on the boxes, each carrying off a couple of items, one turning as he was about to leave the office.
“May I ask a question of our visitors, sir?”
“Go ahead, Jack”
“It’s just… Is this another nasty one?”
Candice answered for us.
“It is, I’m afraid. Nowhere near as bad as the Cooper case, but unpleasant”
“How do you cope? Sorry to be personal, but meant in sympathy”
She waved at me.
“Friends. Friends to be strong for, and friends who are strong for me. Oh, and the occasional piss-up”
“Where are you staying?”
“Red Lion, place called Budworth”
“Got ear plugs?”
“Sorry?”
“You’re not far off Oulton Park. Bike and car race track”
“Oh! That’s, well, fitting”
We were left in peace, and for a while we simply sipped, chewed and made neutral talk, until Sedgewick’s mobile chirped. He looked at the screen for a few seconds, then sighed.
“Forbes has been lifted. He is apparently not a content lagomorph. Be prepared for a lecture on the Magna Carta. The warrant was deliberately vague, so you will be able to do some rug-pulling that will leave him off-balance. The warrant simply says ‘criminal harassment’, and it is a bench warrant, so the arresting Officers won’t have to give a full account at the Custody desk”
A softer smile this time.
“Rank at my level is largely political in its responsibilities, ladies, but I can still remember my days as an active thieftaker. You have a slight edge in this case, so please---ah. Come in, David. Diane Sutton and Candice Warren of the Review Unit, David Hodge from our CID. Oh, forgive me”
He pointed at each of us in turn, giving out ranks, “Detective Sergeant, ditto, DC”, and Hodge looked at our not-so- little suitcase as Sedgewick waved an invitation at the pastries.
“The original papers and stuff in there? Discs?”
I nodded.
“I signed it all out, and as I signed for the originals when we collected them, I can produce when it comes to that point”
“Great. We have a vid player in the room, so we can show the crunchy bits properly. Do you write an interview plan?”
I shook my head.
“Nope. Got an idea of what I have as ammo, but I just focus on where I need to go so I can listen to his answers better”
‘David’ laughed heartily.
“I like her style, sir! Great minds and that. How long should we leave him to fester and fret? He’s speaking to the duty brief at the moment, but until we start dishing the dirt, he won’t have much to work on”
Candice waved at the table.
“Still got cake, David. I can’t work and eat at the same time—blonde, as you can see”
For once, she couldn’t keep a straight face, and corpsed.
“I will tell you two things. Firstly, I am expecting a lot of interview suspensions as the evidence builds up, and that may lead to the brief walking out if Nige tries to lie too much to him. Second, I do believe our wannabe Deformity Councillor is worried, and that’s cause he is a Mighty Freeman, and those twats usually just rant, telling us what the law is, rather than getting a brief in”
David raised his eyebrows.
“Not so blonde at all, are you?”
“I will have you know this is all natural, unlike when Diane tried it. Anyway, the two of us met the widower, and he is a very, very nice, gentle man. This is for him”
We gave Nigel an hour after his brief had come out before we started our little game, and it did seem to have had an effect, as he was blustering from the start, loud complaints about his personal conveyance and his contract with the Sovereign, our status as paid lackeys without the power to enforce any law, and so much more of a similar kind. David just sat patiently, until the brief interrupted.
“Mr Forbes, these Officers can’t proceed until some formalities are observed. Also, you won’t be able to examine the evidence they hold if they aren’t allowed to speak”
Translation: FFS STFU.
David uncoiled.
“I am Detective Sergeant Hodge of Cheshire Constabulary. This is Detective Sergeant Sutton of the Serious Crime Review Unit, South Wales Police”
Forbes brow furrowed.
“What on Earth has Wales got to do with anything?”
I gave him ‘Sammy, Sweet’ as a smile, holding my version of ‘Feral’ for later.
“As far as I am aware at this moment, nothing. However, my team support serious crime investigation across the whole of the UK. We are here to support this case on behalf of Cheshire. I am here personally because I gathered the evidence we shall be presenting”
“As a Freeman of this Land, I will decide what counts as evidence”
“No, sorry. That’s down to the judge in any trial”
There was another murmur from the brief, and David produced the necessary fresh packs of tapes, explaining the way the system works, and then, finally, we were at the “This is an interview of Mister Nigel Ewan Forbes. Present is myself…” stage.
Candice was spot on with her prediction, for as soon as David asked “Did you know a woman called Madeleine, Maddy, Strachan, formerly Madeleine Gibson?” Forbes was asking to consult his brief. Suspend the interview, and David insisted on using the long-form break, which meant signing and sealing all the tapes before we left the room, which of course meant that we would have to do the whole opening ritual once again. Candice, of course, had spotted that and congratulated him for his nastiness.
Ten minutes later, and we were back in, and yet again, “This is an interview of…” was followed by that first question: had he known Maddy?
“No. I have no idea who that person might be”
I kept my poker face on, because as every copper knows, a provable lie is as good as a confession. David was smooth.
“Have you ever eaten at the Bouchon Bordelais in Middlewich?”
“I believe so. It is a very nice restaurant. I have eaten there often”
David smiled.
“So I hear. Did you eat there on May the…”
“I may have done”
“I am now showing Mr Forbes a copy of the booking records for the Bouchon on that day. The record says for seven that evening ‘Forbes plus one, table 14’. Was that you, Mr Forbes?”
“Possibly. I like the food”
The brief interrupted just then.
“I am sorry, Officer, but my client obviously has no idea what relevance any of this has to anything at all. We have only been informed of an allegation of criminal harassment”
“Oh, I am so sorry. It’s a case of criminal harassment of Mrs Strachan and her husband. Harassment that seems to have resulted in her suicide. Does that clarify things sufficiently?”
Out for a second break, this time for forty minutes. Back in, opening credits again, and…
“When you ate at the Bouchon that time, who was the ‘plus one’?”
“I have no idea”
“Was it Madeleine? Maddy?”
“I do not know anyone of that name”
“Well, obviously not now, as she is deceased. That doesn’t answer my question, Mr Forbes”
“No. It wasn’t your Maddy person”
“I have here a copy of the payment record for that evening, for the table and time slot of your booking. The bill was paid by someone called M Gibson”
Long break procedure once again, Candice almost choking with laughter.
“How much longer will this go on?”
David sighed, mask slipping slightly.
“In terms of questions, not that much longer. He’s lied by reflex, so it’s going to be a summing up, a crunch question, then special warning before we put all the notes to him and run the vids. Fun’s almost over; just the grind now. That one he sent her husband is the last one I want to put to him. What a cunt—sorry. I mean, even getting her to pay the bill for the meal!”
It was another forty minutes before we were back in, and, as promised, David cut straight to the chase.
“Mr Forbes, I have now given you what I believe is an adequate overview of what this investigation is concerned with. Detective Sergeant Sutton here has a bundle of evidence in this case, and as she assembled it, she will be putting it to you. There is a lot of it. It is a record of a pattern of harassment that caused an innocent woman such distress that she took her own life. Before we start this lengthy process, I will issue you with what is called a special caution. You do not have to say anything, but if you do not mention now something which you later rely on in court, a judge may instruct a jury to draw such conclusions from your failure as may appear to be proper to them. You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say will be given in evidence”
David paused for a moment to let the warning fester, before beginning the grind. I prepared the first note as he drew breath
“On various dates, the following notes were delivered to the business premises of Mrs Strachan and her husband. They have been examined forensically, and each one has traces of DNA that match the sample obtained from you recently. I am now requiring you to account for this. Sergeant Sutton?”
I held up that first note.
“For the benefit of the tape I am showing Mr Forbes item marked Sutton zero zero zero one. It is a note reading ‘Hope local schools don’t let you paedos take kids pics’. How do you account for it carrying a match for your DNA?”
His mouth moved a few times before I finally got the first “No comment”, which was a relief. We got about three quarters of the way through the bundle before David called a halt.
“We are now entering a rest period, and therefore we will be suspending this interview until the morning. We will recommence at ten, if your legal advisor is able to attend”
He rattled through the closing parts of the process, and switched it all off after sorting the tapes. Forbes was snarling by then.
“And how am I supposed to get here for that time? Your fellow lackeys stole my private conveyance!”
David did the theatrical ‘confused’ look we all use, even though it isn’t taught at our college.
“I’m sorry? No need for a car—it’s only a short walk from your cell”
Forbes looked stunned, but at least his brief tried.
“I am sorry, Officer, but isn’t this a case suitable for Inspector’s Bail?”
David nodded.
“Yes, ordinarily. However, as your client has repeatedly stated that he believes he is under no obligation to comply with any such restrictions, we can’t offer them”
We walked the two of them back to the Custody desk, where David had clearly prepared the sergeant, and that conversation ended with “Put him in number six” and a question to the brief: did he want some time with his client?
I had to give the man some credit, in the end, as he didn’t walk out claiming professional embarrassment.
We regrouped with Sedgewick after David had managed to curb his laughter sufficiently to speak. The Super did the look-over-tented-fingers bit they all do, and then asked, “Will you need me for a review, David?”
“Sorry, sir, but I have wanted to pop one of those bubbles ever since that ‘Freeman’ nonsense first started. Simple answer is that I suspect I will. Time scale depends on two things, and one of them we can’t change: the introduction of all the evidence. The other factor is simply how much of an idiot he is going to be, or rather which sort”
“Please explain”
“He started out all mouth and stupid red trousers, like they all do, Freemen. Then, when Di started putting the stuff to him, he switched to ‘no comment’. If he stays with that, it’ll be quicker, and there will almost certainly be a conviction. If he decides to play silly buggers, like he was at the start, there will definitely be a conviction, because he will seriously piss off the Bench, and ditto if he goes for a judge and jury”
Sedgewick was now grinning.
“I wonder what representations he will make? Diane?”
“Sir?”
“I must remember to give you the money for your pastries. How much were they?”
“Er, Gemma asked who they were for, and I just said ‘Cheshire’, and she said they would be free for you, and Debbie confirmed it. She was quite emphatic; said you’d given her her life back”
That wasn’t exactly correct, for she’d included my own work in that nastiness, but it was mostly true. We said our farewells and ‘see-you-tomorrows’ before Candice drove us back to the Red Lion.
We didn’t get drunk, but we weren’t sober. That little detail of Maddy paying for the meal curdled inside me. The morning would be a hard one.
Our breakfast was absolutely wonderful, but I didn’t, couldn’t, enjoy it fully as that knot was still there. I made sure I had some mints before we entered the HQ, and took some time in the ladies’ to try and get my face more professionally neutral.
We started on time, and for the rest of the paper exhibits, he was still running on ‘no comment’, the ‘Freeman’ shite not appearing until we started showing the video evidence, when we received a lecture about inadmissibility due to permission not having been sought before filming. David caught that one mid-flight.
“That is a public place, and as such there is no presumption of privacy”
“Not true! And why have so many cameras?”
I dropped my own sweetener in there.
“Ah, it’s the sort of thing people do when they are being criminally harassed, Mr Forbes”
“And that is clearly a different registration on that vehicle, not mine!”
“That is the registration mark that belongs on a different vehicle in North Yorkshire, and I would suggest that the plate we can see in that picture is one of the pair seized from you when you were arrested for driving a cloned car, Mr Forbes. For the benefit of the tape, that offence does not form part of our investigations here, but is a separate matter”
He actually tried to claim that the Yorkshire man whose number he had cloned could have driven across for his own unspecified reasons, but I closed that one down with some of the stills showing the mud pattern, and he dropped back into ‘no comment’.
Once I started playing the video and audio of his visits inside the shop, his ‘no comment’ became much less confident.
Two hours of it, and I was getting tired of the whole thing, because he was, in the end, of the same category of vermin as Cooper; he just liked his victims older. Entitlement and cruelty, like any other rapist.
‘Rapist’. I didn’t know where that word had surfaced from, but the face I was now seeing was that of Ashley fucking Evans, my own entitled, cruel rapist. I had one last card to show, though.
“I will remind you once again of the special caution, Mr Forbes, especially in regard to this last item. For the benefit of the tape, I am showing Mr Forbes another piece of paper that was placed through Mr Strachan’s door. The last video recording I produced was timed just before Mr Strachan found this last document, and it would therefore be reasonable to assume that the paper seen in the video is the same as I am now showing Mr Forbes, and for the benefit of the tape it reads ‘Dogs go woof, ducks go quack, cows go moo, freak goes splat’. Once again, it carries a match for your DNA. It was delivered after the unfortunate death of Maddy Strachan. I am now requiring you to account for that fact”
His mouth worked a couple of times, but he settled for another ‘No comment’, and David took over.
“I was at a loss when I first read the file for this case, Mr Forbes, for I was unable to work out how someone could harass another human to the extent that they took their own life. I was stunned, however, when I realised that you had not just abused Mrs Strachan to such an extent, but actually felt the desire to gloat about her death to her widowed husband. Would you like to explain your motivation, your thought processes, in that matter?”
“No comment”
“Right. Do either you or your legal representative have anything to add? Anything you wish to clarify?”
“I will clarify that you have no lawful authority to engage in this abuse of my rights”
“Go ahead, Mr Forbes. Both Sergeant Sutton and I will be interested to hear your views on this matter”
The brief piped up, advising his client not to answer, then asked what should have been an obvious question.
“Officers, may I ask for clarification of one matter?”
“Please do”
“How did she meet her demise? Was it definitely a suicide?”
David glanced at me, then looked straight at the brief.
“I didn’t attend the incident, as it is not my role. Several of my colleagues had to bear that burden. She fell or jumped from the top of a six storey car park. ‘Splat’ was indeed a fair description, if you pardon my levity in such an awful case: call it a way of coping with true horror. She had a note in her pocket, in which she apologised to the man she called her only love, for being too weak to bear what she called ‘non-stop papers through the door’. The Coroner ruled it was a suicide”
“Thank you, Sergeant. I will advise my client not to speak further. I have nothing more to add. Mr Forbes? Remember my advice”
Forbes just dipped his head, then shook it.
“For the benefit of the tape, Mr Forbes has shaken his head. I shall take that as a no, and I am now terminating this interview. The time is…”
We went through the same old same old again, and eventually the brief left for his office after Forbes was locked away once again. David’s smooth manner evaporated as soon as we were back with Candice.
“Sorry, ladies, but I need a moment. Di: one of those people who had to deal with Maddy afterwards was my missus, when she was still squeaky new and I wasn’t even out of the college. She’s never got over it”
Candice was the gentle one, just then.
“We have a friend, David. She’s a Custody Sergeant now, but she was in Traffic. Believe us when we say we understand”
He nodded, a hint of a smile there.
“Yeah, and I followed some of your other cases. Shitty job we have”
I gave his shoulder a squeeze.
“Boss, our boss, said something about us having the privilege of taking the people who make it shitty and locking them up. Making a difference, yeah?”
“Yeah. Suppose I better shout CPS for a decision”
In the end, the Crown Prosecution Service decided he should be bailed, while they worked out whether there was sufficient evidence for a charge, and most likely argued about which charges were appropriate. The rules didn’t really allow us to hang onto Forbes any longer, and as David put it, we would get our own ‘shits and giggles’ in putting his door in if he decided to play games.
For my part, I had simply had enough. He was a consummate turd, and as I compared him to the big, gentle man he had hurt so badly, I wondered whether Forbes was actually of the same species.
We drove back to Cardiff in near silence. Poor, poor Neil; I just hoped we could lend him the strength for what must surely be a trial.
Three weeks later, though, and it was done. The CPS had, for once, decided to be proactive on our side, and Forbes was charged with a multitude of offences from harassment to stalking, by way of Malicious Communications, and for once he decided to keep his gob shut in court, going ‘guilty’ at the Plea and Directions Hearing, which spared Neil from an ordeal I suspected would have left him as fragile as Forbes had made Maddy. Lexie took Enfys and Alys back over to his place before sentencing, so that they could work together on his Impact Statement, which Alys read out for him just before Forbes got sent down for three years.
Three years, for what had effectively been murder?
Still better than nothing, as Sammy reminded me once we were all back at our day job. Two months later, and that Inspector got twelve years for Perverting the Course, which went some way to easing my discontent.
I was still curious, though concerning the hints about ‘Even more forn parts’, until Bevan called into our team office, which was, to say the least, unusual. He had a stranger in tow, who didn’t smell like plod, so we gathered round, drinks in hand along with a few sandwiches, and awaited introductions and, we were guessing, a briefing. Bevan waited till we were all settled, and smiled around the room.
“Rest assured I will not be saying ‘boys and girls’, as I believe that phrase is already rather well spoken for. This gentleman is from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London: Alex Beaton. Could you please introduce yourselves, save me doing it?”
We did the usual pass-the parcel game of names and background, and Bev smiled and nodded his thanks.
“Right. You will all be wondering why you are gathered here today, to reuse another cliché. Well, this is partly as a reminder that I remain a policeman despite the politics I have to indulge in at my level of rank. Well, call it evidence of a wandering mind, if you wish. When D.I. Patel first presented the Forbes case to me, something stirred in the back of my mind, so I made my own enquiries”
He grinned, looking rather boyish as he did so.
“As I said, I remain a copper, a thieftaker at heart. There is another case associated with that of Mr Strachan, which followed a few years later, and it is connected. Alex here is a colleague of an old friend from Brazenose, and he is, or was, involved in the case in question. The floor is yours, Alex”
“Thank you, sir. Officers, I gather you have some links to a couple of families in North Wales. Now…”
We helped him set up the big screen, rearranging chairs so that we could all see, and he started one of those slide-pack shows where a laser pointer is used to pick out salient points as the slides are clicked through.
“Right. This, as you all know, is Neil Strachan [click], and this is Alys Hiatt-Edwards, with both of whom you are familiar [click]. This is Michael Benjamin Rhodes, now an Australian national. Sort of adopted uncle to Mrs Hiatt-Edwards and her wife”
He paused for a second, looking round the room.
“Are all of you familiar with Neil’s involvement in finding Alys after her kidnap and assault? Right. Alys spent her placement year staying with Mr Rhodes in Australia. [click] This is a picture of Maryam binti Rahman Rhodes, Michael’s wife. Dual national, Malaysian and Australian. Mr Strachan has been kind enough to send us this picture he took, [click] of their wedding. They have one son, Ishmael, who is now eighteen”
The couple looked radiant in their wedding picture, for once the cliché fitting absolutely: a powerfully built man, bearded and obviously only a little smaller than Blake, and a really pretty oriental woman in an elegant white wedding dress, standing in some sort of park. Beaton coughed again, clicking through another couple of slides.
“This is Maryam’s mother Samira binti Hassan Rahman, and her father Ali bin Yusuf Rahman, who live in Selangor State, just outside Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital. Michael and Maryam had been trying to build a family relationship with his in-laws, to no great success, and when they were seconded to Singapore for their work, they saw it as an improved opportunity.
“Samira Rahman was invited to visit them more than once, but declined. She did, however, insist that Maryam visit the family on the occasion of a family member’s funeral”
I was starting to get a really bad feeling now, which was confirmed by his next little nugget.
“Maryam attended, and there was a video phone call from KL where Samira was introduced to both Michael and Ishmael. There was another call later, where Maryam expressed her displeasure at the family effectively denying the legitimacy of her marriage. She explained that she had snapped during the discussion and had revealed that Michael has Jewish ancestry. She declared her intention of flying straight back to her husband and son, and gave the times of the flight she had booked. She was a no-show at KL airport for that flight”
Rhys shot Jon a glance, clearly getting the same shitty vibes as I was, and then Ellen raised a hand.
“Yes, er, Ellen?”
“Can we guess here that this is a missing person case?”
“In essence, yes”
“Local force involved?”
The man’s eyes closed slightly, and he let out a long sigh.
“I believe the standard meme is ‘Move along, nothing to see here’. There was a high level of political activity at the time, I am afraid, involving a joint initiative by the UK and Australia to market a particular management package originated by the employer of Mr and Mrs Rhodes, during a rather major South-East Asia international conference”
He rubbed his eyes, and pulled a chair across, sitting down wearily.
“Enough Death By Powerpoint for now. That door locked?”
Alun moved first, with a wry “It is now”
“Good. In essence, this is a pile of stinking shit. I knew Maryam, I know Mike. Really good people. Local police in Selangor dug up nothing, and I don’t believe they looked too hard. The various governments, or at least my oppos in International Development, were radar-locked on trade deals, and if one unimportant person had decided to stay back home with her family, who cared?”
He was right about it being a pile, that was true. Jon’s turn with the questions.
“Obvious answer to this, I know, but I assume Mike rang her when she didn’t arrive?”
“Yes. Odd response, as it didn’t go to the answering service but straight to saying the number was unavailable”
Rob was nodding now.
“Phone’s been trashed, then. Either dropped in a river or smashed properly. Can I ask if you have any other loose ends we can tug? And can we assume you would like us to see what we can… Sorry, but I was going to use that phrase again, and I don’t want to go there. ‘Dig up’, I mean”
Beaton was nodding before Rob had finished speaking.
“Michael appears to have accepted that is the case, I am afraid. It would still be nice to give them closure. I will declare an interest in this, as I have already said: I knew them both, and I liked them. When I spotted Neil’s case in the press, I was tempted to contact Mike, but before I could do so I was called into my Head’s office. Mr Williams here had been on the phone”
He suddenly grinned, looking as boyish as Bev had.
“Not complaining about old boys’ networks today! Now, in short: we would like to find Maryam, whether, well, just find her. We, I am authorised to offer cooperation from the FCO to as full an extent as we can, and my Head of Office is due to have a not-so-quiet word with DfID—er, International Development--- and apply some shoe leather to trouser seats. I will admit to not holding much hope for a, er, positive result, but there is still value in closure, as you are aware. That is something I do know of you, along with the fact that you will do your very best”
Bev put a hand to his shoulder, with a soft smile.
“I am aware that you consider certain people to be ‘ours’; ‘family’, if you like. I know that you effectively adopted Neil Strachan, and I trust that the same consideration will be extended to the Rhodes family. In this case, there is no need to worry about perceived bias. As with the Forbes case, your role is to investigate and obtain evidence. Prosecution or other actions will be down to local authorities. Yes, Candice?”
“Whose budget, sir? As you said, this is well outside our turf”
“Alex has advised me that, on this occasion, following a rather lax performance in investigating the disappearance of a woman married to someone who still holds UK nationality, as he put it, ‘DfID can pay what they owe for leaving such a’, what was it? Oh yes: ‘absolute pile of fucking shit’. Is that a fair précis, Alex?”
“Um, more of a direct quote, sir”
“Right. Now, as this is well outside of our usual operational system, Alex will be here to steer you through the limits and assets of his side of things. Please keep me up to date with any developments. I am afraid I do share what the likely assumption is about Maryam’s fate, but if that is what we find, then at least we can allow her family to mourn her properly”
He made his exit, heading back for Brassland, and Alex was straight into things, handing out what looked very like evidence bundles.
“In there, you have what photos we have managed to snaffle, as well as copies of things like the booking record for the flight Mrs Rhodes was due to catch back to Singapore. There are also copies of letters and e-mails sent by her husband and son to us, to our Australian colleagues and a few we managed to gather that had gone to the Malaysians. We haven’t got everything, for Michael was quite prolific over several years in his enquiries. Oh, is that a kettle I see? Could I please beg a cuppa?”
Jon did the business, and Alex turned back to us, looking drained.
“I had dealings with the family right from the start, so I know them, sort of. At least, as well as one can through a video link. Seeing what the boy wrote was, well. Rather hard. I have a mate out there, though, and he was a lor more involved. The old colonial place we had the family in has a small pool, and they were absolutely Aussie in how they lived. Regular barbies, both for the kid’s friends and for their own. Gary was a regular, as was his mate Andy Chisholm. You’ll find a bio and photo of each of them in your bundles.
“You will also find bios of two bigwigs at the Singapore end of things: Maureen Chao and Simon Lee. With me so far?”
Along with the rest of the team, I was ferreting through the pack for the items in question, finding the rather hard-faced ‘Maureen’ just before I saw another bio, one Audrey Yu.
“The bio for Audrey Yu is to be treated as sensitive, please. We have a few possible conflicts here, and she is one of them. She works for Mrs, NEVER Maureen, Chao and Simon Lee. She is also in a relationship with Gary Poulson, which is not for public knowledge. Gary doesn’t know that we know, for starters. She is effectively playing on both sides, as is Andy Chisholm, who went native in Sydney and Canberra. The good thing is that, on this occasion at least, Australia and the UK are in common cause. We can’t be sure about the Singaporeans, for their way of working always involves deep self-interest”
This was sounding more and more like a serious mess, and I was at a loss for an obvious way in. We did cold cases every day, but this one looked frozen solid. In another little snippet showing how out of luck we were, it seemed that Michael and his son Ishmael had left for Australia several weeks earlier. Arsebollocks, as Annie would say.
Alex stayed with us for the rest of the day to answer questions, but he had a seven o’clock train back to London as a deadline. There was, in any case, no way we could dream of anything worthwhile popping up in the first day, and Mike Rhodes had clearly tried his best for so many years of loss. I understood why Alex had sidestepped further comments about how he saw the family when I read the boy’s letters myself, dear god.
We locked everything away in the usual way before Blake and I ran Alex over to the Central Station and then got ourselves home by way of our usual childminders, Mam and Dad being back in Italy with, no doubt, a mass of family photos to show ‘our’ waiters. Child secured, cat fed, rodent remains moved from back doormat to composting bin, we were back into the mundane side of things, where a father and son didn’t grieve for so many years of loss.
I left my brain to spin its little wheels, hoping it might throw something out, but there was nothing. We spent weeks reading and rereading the correspondence, same result. Ellen and my brother-in-law hit the financial side, looking for activity of any kind after that flight booking, and yet again, nothing.
I found myself infuriated by the increasingly rude and dismissive nature of the replies from the police; they were clearly at the eye-rolling, already-answered-that, do-go-away stage of their public relations arc. Not a good look, not at all, and my professional side felt only contempt.
I spoke to Andy Chisholm several times, and Alun was one of those who tag-teamed me with Chisholm and Poulson, and that was another collection of stabs to my heart, for they had clearly cared for the family. Lexie introduced me properly to Enfys and Alys, who filled in some of the gaps, even though we didn’t exactly tell them what our tasking was, as we didn’t want to risk old wounds being torn open.
Still nothing. I went to see Sammy, who was almost blasé, as if expecting me.
“You’ve wrapped that bit up then?”
“Sorry?”
This brought the Caring Sammy smile, the one I had seen when Candice had so nearly broken.
“Old wounds, Di. There are lots of times when they don’t heal, which I assume is what you are thinking. Time to let Michael Rhodes know we’re on his case?”
I nodded, very slowly.
“I think so, Sammy. We’ve hammered the documents, followed the money, done as much as we can, and all I can think of now is a statement taker route”
He showed me an e-mail in his drafts box, asking the Super for exactly what I proposed.
“Why did you let us grind through all--- Shut up, Sutton. You were hoping we might find something, weren’t you?”
“I was. I really didn’t want us speaking to Rhodes unless we had to, or, dreamer that I am, that we could tell him we had a result, of whatever kind”
He paused, shaking his head.
“No, Di. I might be a dreamer, but I am also a realist. There’s a grave somewhere, almost certainly unmarked. He is owed that much consideration. Any… I am asking the FCO, via Bevan, to arrange a meeting with him. We will sort a decent time of day for both ends, Bevan will introduce our unit, and then we can have a statement session. I would suggest you and Candice, Fluffy rather than Blonde, and Lexie. There’s no UK criminality here, so she’s not compromised”
“A bit sexist, Boss?”
“Di, there are times when being sexist is useful, and I would rather he face you three than Rhys or your hubby, or Alun, but they’ll be off-camera and mike. Team head on, but only suitable faces on screen. I’ll send this now, if you’re sure we’ve exhausted other avenues”
I couldn’t help the sigh that escaped me, so just nodded.
It took a week before we hit the right date, and while Bevan was in full regalia, the rest of us were in as casual a state as could be managed while not being scruffy. ‘Fluffy’, Sergeant Sutton. No teeth.
We were in the conference room, the rest outside on their laptops, when the screen lit up with three faces I recognised and one I didn’t. Bevan was direct and to the point.
“Good morning, Mr Rhodes, even though it is evening here. I am Superintendent Bevan Williams of South Wales Police Heddlu De Cymru. That may confuse you, but in my fief is a Serious Crime Review Unit, what the Americans call a ‘cold case’ team. We were contacted by Alex Beaton from the Foreign Office to dig into your loss and see if we could find an answer for you”
Rhodes looked slightly miffed.
“Would have been nice to have been warned, Mr Williams”
“Bev, please. The simple answer to that is that we didn’t want to cause distress if we could avoid it. My team has spent many hours digging through evidence, and they have a very good track record in that. They have advised me that the only possible way forward now is to speak to you directly. We have a discipline called a statement taker, Mr Rhodes”
“Mike. Yeah, I know about them. Help you remember things you didn’t know you’d forgotten, am I right?”
“Exactly, and thank you, Mike. Now, I have three of my team here, so shall we do a round of introductions?”
“Gary Poulson, UK High Commission in Singapore”
“Andy Chisholm, same as Gary”
“Bobby Nguyen, State Government Western Australia, and I advise on South East Asian policy nationally. And Mike’s a good mate, as was Maz. Er, sorry, Mike”
Unlike the others, he was sitting with Mike rather than simply on screen, and Mike simply hugged him without speaking. I drew breath: on with it.
“Diane Sutton, Detective Sergeant, SCRU”
“Candice Warren, Detective Constable, SCRU”
“Lexie Doyle, Detective Constable, SCRU”
Mike sat up straighter.
“Lexie? Friend of Enfys and Alys?”
Lexie nodded.
“That’s me. They spoke to me about your friend”
“Neil, yes, and you got that fucker Forbes banged away, along with that bitch--- calm down. Sorry, all; old wounds, lots of anger with them. Thank you, Lexie, you and your team. Starting to make sense now. Shall we start? What do I do?”
Candice was most definitely channelling Fluffy, without the slightest hint of Blonde.
“What it is, Mike, is we talk you through it, and I type it up as we go, so I might stop and start you several times. We then read it through a few times, and you’d be surprised what can pop out of the back of your mind”
“Why didn’t the Malaysians do this?”
“Having read the paperwork, I suspect it was due to a lack of any shits available for giving. Hang on: Lexie, am I down to do Fluffy or Fang?”
“Fluffy, I believe”
Candice smiled once again.
“I’ll keep the claws in, then. Oh, Mike: if Diane falls asleep, she isn’t actually out of it. She just has a very good free-association thing. She’ll be listening, unless you hear her snoring”
She was doing brilliantly, pulling him from despair to occasional chuckles, and I did indeed end up sitting right back in my chair as he talked us through the letter campaign from Australia, just to get his mother in law to engage, the offers to pay for a flight down from her home to Singapore, the emotional blackmail of the funeral and the angry phone calls that followed, finally coming to a pause with the demand to ‘return’ his son to his Malaysian family.
There had to be something there.
Candice had typed it into her laptop, and was working her way through it with occasional question from Lexie, and little things began to flesh out, mostly irrelevant, such as the fact that the airline rep at Changi had been a Malay rather than Chinese, and which shop Ishmael had gone to in order to buy mints, and, FUCK.
The phone. ‘Either dropped in a river or smashed properly’, Rob had said. I sat up straight.
“Mike?”
“Yes?”
“That conversation with your wife, the angry one”
“What? All dominance games and who gets to the front of the honoured relative queue?”
“The bit about her previous marriage?”
“They wouldn’t accept it”
“And your marriage?”
“Same thing”
“No. There was something else you said, about wives”
It was so very nearly there, and then the word “Cousin” came from me of its own accord. His face clouded.
“Fucking right! They even suggested she marry again, probably about fucking dowries and shit, and---”
“Suleiman. Cousin. Has a fishing business. Where did she say it was?”
Gary opened and closed his mouth a few times, before settling on “Melaka. On the west coast opposite Sumatra. I’m going to drop out for a minute and make some calls. Bobby? You doing the same?”
“Later, Gary. I’ll do them with Mike, okay?”
Gary’s face disappeared, and for the first time since I had met him, I saw what could almost be hope in Mike’s eyes.
“I see what Candice meant, Diane”
“Yeah. I’m just a bit weird. Would you mind, really mind, if we went through it a few more times?”
There was nothing else there, though, so we said our farewells and closed down the call before my team settled down to the traditional unpaid overtime of putting some structure onto the bones I had just dug up.
No. Not those words, Sutton. I knew exactly what sort of calls those men would be starting, so I simply pulled up the maps app and compared geography with the history I had just been given. Search function… ‘fishing fisheries fisherman’ and how the hell was that name spelled in Malaysia? Look up some places with a guess and, yes, ‘Suleiman’?
Nothing so easy, but Alex rang three days later.
“You three got passports, Di?”
“I have, don’t know about the others”
“Could you ask?”
I did so, getting two nods, and gave him the answer.
“Why, Alex?”
“At the moment, it’s need to know. And we need to know more at this end. I’ll be back in touch when, if we do”
Click, and gone.
We got nothing more from our file-scraping, so we closed the folders, locked them away, and got back to builder fraud and another historic missing person case, such fun, and ten days later we had Alex back on line, this time on a video call, just we three women, Sammy and the Super. Alex seemed unable to sit still.
“Diane, thank you. We have made… You are not cleared to know how we sourced this information, so please don’t ask. The first thing we found was financial, an attempt to use Mrs Rahman’s card for a contactless purchase that triggered a PIN request. That attempt was made eighteen months after she was last spoken to”
Lexie asked “Where?”, and Alex waved a calming hand, which was odd coming from someone so twitchy.
“In a few, Lexie. I’ll get to that. Now this…”
A photo appeared, a Malay man in a scruffy T-shirt and board shorts, standing on a dock talking to someone with his back to us.
“This is Suleiman bin Said Husseiyin, cousin to Maryam. Has a fishing business, and you know where. Thing is, he has dual nationality, of a sort, Malaysian and Indonesian, and he lives here”
A satellite map showing a small village or town with lots of greenery around it.
“Please don’t laugh at the name, which is Titiakar. Don’t know if that’s one word or two. The card fraud attempt was in Pekanbaru, the regional capital. We… Calm down. We have called in favours with the Indonesians, and we wish to visit Husseiyin, along with their police. There are other issues involved I am not at liberty to discuss, but this is raising all sorts of discussions at a very high level. If you are willing, we’d like to fly you out there. It may be a false alarm, but both governments are looking to take advantage of the optics. Are you all game?”
Candice looked at me, and then Lexie, and asked the most obvious of questions. Another twitch from Alex.
“Two days’ time”
I rang Blake once we were free, telling him as much was allowed, and then started packing what I had in the way of jungle warfare kit, or at least lighter clothing, though I did make sure I packed my work boots and tactical vest, along with the obligatory baseball cap. The train took us to Reading, the Elizabeth Line took us to Heathrow, and god knows how many hours later, Singapore Airlines delivered us to their home base.
Around 36 hours later, I was starting to feel human again, and could face leaving my hotel room. That flight had been a bloody sight longer than my trip to Cuba.
We gathered for breakfast for the first time, three frazzled women and a drained-looking FCO man, and I was just digging into some fresh fruit salad when there was a call across the restaurant.
“Alex?”
“Gaz! Great to see you. Great to be able to see anything, to be honest—death warmed up, that’s me. Andy?”
“Parking the car. Di, Lexie, Candice? Nice to meet properly. Oh, over here!”
Three of us stood as two more men joined us, but it was Lexie who first went round the table to hug Michael Rhodes.
“The girls have told me so much about their Uncle Mike!”
He kissed the top of her head, which was a simple thing for him, as he was almost as big as Candice’s Barry.
“They have more than returned the favour, Lexie. Neil and me, we both owe you. I hope you know more about this than I do”
Gary pointed upstairs.
“We have a meeting room booked for after breakfast. One more to come, but we meet him at the airport. We have another flight, but a short one”
I was a lot hungrier than I had realised, but did my best to ease it, before we were in a meeting room that could have been anywhere in the world. Gary dove in.
“Andy has appraised these ladies of a few things, Mike, so I will be quick. We have identified the cousin. He lives on Sumatra. Eighteen months after you last spoke to your wife, someone tried to use her credit card in the Sumatran capital. Serous allegations have been made against this cousin, which would have an even more serious impact on Indonesia’s national reputation, which is fragile following what they did in East Timor and are alleged to be doing in New Guinea, so this is an opportunity for them to recoup some global favour. I actually think it is just performative, but if I am right, I don’t give a flying fuck how we got them on side. I have to keep schtumm on some of this. Bosses have called in immense piles of favours. Any questions?”
Lexie was first.
“Feeling a bit silly, but I packed my tactical vest and a police baseball cap. Was that stupid?”
Candice laughed just before I did, and it took a while before we could get the message across to Lexie that if she was silly, that made three of us, while Gary grinned”
“Perfect! There’ll be a camera crew”
Shit.
The man meeting us at Changi was Bobby Nguyen, who clung onto Mike even longer than Lexie had, and then we were boarding another airliner, as I promised my headache and body clock that this was only a hop. Ninety minutes later, and we were down and being led past the border control by a group of uniformed men, whose obvious leader stared hard at Mike before speaking.
“Michael Rhodes?”
“Yes”
One of the other uniforms said something, receiving a glare from his boss, and Mike asked what had been said.
“His attempt at humour, Mr Rhodes, in saying that you do not look Jewish. We will discuss that later. I am Captain Rahim. You will be under my care today. I am promising nothing, you understand, but I will require that you and these police officers stay behind my people. Do you police have badges or identifying garments?”
I pulled out my vest and cap.
“Excellent. Please don them. The rest of you take these tabards”
Yellow, reading ‘POLIS’. Once we were all ready, Rahim led us down a little maze of corridors until we arrived at an exit to the tarmac, where there were three large helicopters and around twenty soldiers. Lexie whispered, “Should have brought my helmet”, just as Rahim opened the door and called out what was obviously an order, the armed men scrambling into ranks. He continued in his language, and I caught a few side-eyes from the soldiers, before they all did a right-face and trotted off to emplane or board or mount, whatever the term was.
I turned to Gary with an attempt at a joke, saying we were overfamiliar with helicopters, but that stuck in my throat as three dog handlers followed the squaddies onto two of the choppers.
Fuck. I still remembered those comments from the Cooper case, about digging up gardens. I was going to feel nauseous anyway, but that thought wasn’t helping. In this heat…
Board. Helmets on, with mikes attached. Strap in. Then that well-remembered delight of being in a very loud tin box, moving in odd ways. Gary elbowed me, to show me his phone, where he had typed a quick message.
“Allegation against cousin is slavery. Indonesia accused of that in N Guinea. That was our lever. Watch what say pls”
We hammered away under a brassy blue sky until I could see water off to our right, paddy fields and masses of dense foliage below, and the craft dipped down low, almost level with the forest canopy, before rearing up and then settling onto the ground. As the engines wound down, Rahim’s voice came from my headset.
“All wait here. We are securing a perimeter”
Fifteen minutes later, and our cabin door slid open, a couple of soldiers waving us forward. The heat was like a wet slap in the face, and I could hear the whine of insects all round me. We were in a clear area surrounded by trees, not a clue about where to go, so I settled my cap in place, already sweating under my claimed wicking top and vest, and followed the men forward through the trees until we came to a sprawling single-storey building, partly thatched with palm leaves, partly tin-roofed. There were six men by the front door, all of them kneeling with their hands behind their heads as soldiers didn’t quite point their rifles at them. Rahim waved me over to one of the men.
“Suleiman Husseiyin. These are British police officers. They want to talk to you”
The kneeling man, who was definitely the one in the dock photo, snarled something in the local language, and Rahim shook his head.
“You speak English. These people speak English. You. Will. Be. Polite. Do you understand? They may have to go away for a few minutes before you speak to them again”
We’re definitely not in bloody Kansas now, Toto.
“Mr Husseiyin, we are here to enquire about an Australian national. Mrs Maryam Rhodes. Do you know anything about her?”
“Who is Maryam Rhodes?”
“Your cousin. Last heard of at a funeral that you both attended”
“I know of no such person”
Mike was starting to pace, and called across, “Maryam binti Rahman Rhodes! My wife!”
Husseiyin replied, “You’re the Yihud, then?” and spat on the ground, as my hand clenched, missing the feel of a nice, friendly asp or pepper spray. I wasn’t actually fussed, as a taser would have been just as welcome or, indeed, any suitably blunt and impactful implement, so I repeated silently the old mantra of not leaving visible damage on one’s detainee.
Rahim sighed.
“Ah. Our guests should take a walk, I think. Perhaps observe my men as they search. Now. Please”
His meaning was plain, as was the long stick one of his soldiers passed him, but I didn’t care. He was probably better with implements than I would have been, and might have a better appreciation of when to stop using them.
Policemen and soldiers were poking everywhere in the building while the dog handlers were quartering the ground as I almost prayed for a nil result. The camera crew lurked, but most definitely well away from whatever was happening to dear Cousin Suleiman.
I stayed with Mike and Bobby, the others moving through rooms in the house, as a dog handler did his thing just to our right. It was almost comical, in the end, as the dog simply stopped dead, the lead jerking the handler’s arm. The hound was rigid, staring at a patch of ground, and that was when I lost all hope of a happy ending. How deep could the grave be?
Our dog man shouted something in Indonesian, and two other uniforms trotted up with spades; as he pulled the animal back, those two spades struck the ground.
The sound was wrong, and the spades bounced. A radio was produced, and thirty seconds later, Rahim arrived at the trot along with several other men, who proceeded to mark out an area of around ten feet by ten feet, tapping at the ground. Another two men dashed up with brooms they had obviously just acquired from the house, and as the rest of the squaddies removed palm fronds and other debris, the fuller brush men went to work.
There was a hatch. Rahim turned to us, almost physically pushing us back while brooms were thrown down and weapons cocked. One of the soldiers threaded a loop of rope through a handle set in the hatch and, standing well clear, hauled it open at Rahim’s command. He followed that with a series of shouts that needed no translation, for they could only have meant ‘Armed Police! Show yourselves!’.
Nothing.
One of the men held a long stick with an angled mirror over the opening, and his eyes went wide. Rahim translated his shout to us.
“We have found his slaves. He will pay. I will make sure”
Another burst of orders, but this time what arrived was a ladder. Rahim was trembling slightly.
“My men say they are bound, blindfolded and gagged. Please stay back as we bring them up”
There was a sudden loud wail from the pit, followed by a child’s scream, which quickly tailed off as a first small figure was brought out fireman style. A little girl, filthy, nothing on her feet, but someone had made sure she had her hair covered, the hypocritical fuckers. The second was a woman; they set her down on the ground, where she hugged the girl before rubbing the child’s wrists and ankles, obviously to ease the pain of her bindings. The woman’s eyes flicked around our party, and I could almost read her mind: what fresh nastiness is this? She looked straight at me, eyes widening slightly, then…
“Bobby? Mike? MIKE! OH GOD!”
I don’t think anyone or anything could have stopped him as he went to his wife, but Rahim simply waved his men back before turning to his radio for a couple of minutes. I actually caught him dabbing his eyes before he turned to his men and giving a little speech, which resulted in cheering.
“Sergeant Sutton, I have explained that this is his wife. I had… when I heard the details of the case, and I put it with the slavery story, I had hopes, and this was what I hoped. I did not expect it to be granted. We have another aircraft coming, with doctors, and I have arranged for one more for our prisoners. My men will stay here, you will please return to the airport. Mr and Mrs Rhodes will be taken to hospital. I will need to establish who the child is before I make a decision there”
“What about the rest of us?”
“My office is arranging accommodation for you. We will need to debrief everyone, once we have secured our prisoners and finished searching the site. We have already found two more concealed storage sites”
My mouth dried instantly.
“More slaves?”
“Three more. Plus a lot of hashish”
“What…”
I already knew the answer to my question, but I had to ask
“What will happen to Husseiyin?”
“Oh, they will all be shot, I think. Do not concern yourself on their score”
Just for once, I had to agree with him. In the excitement, I only remembered the camera crew when the flashes started.
Mike was still holding his wife, as if he couldn’t let her go, or as if he dreaded what might happen if he did. So many years…
The medevac helicopter was a lot quicker than our own cargo beasts, picking up both Maryam and the girl, along with a ferociously clinging Mike, leaving a number of other medics to attend to three more terrified victims, and our own flight back was much roomier. No less quiet, but silent for all the noise around, as none of us seemed very chatty. Captain Rahim gathered us all in yet another anodyne meeting room, this one with quite loud air conditioning, and in a mixture of Indonesian and English talked us through the day’s work. So far, we had five slaves and three [phone call] five underground storage pits. The first three contained bales of cannabis, while the other two held tubs of what was suspected to be opium. Rahim was upbeat in the extreme, now.
“We now have a new tasking, which is to locate the gardens they have grown their goods in. I am looking forward to some cooperation from their former chattels on that score. We will also be following up on the customers, for opium is not something to be shipped as it is too bulky. There is a heroin factory somewhere near that place, and we will find it. Do not spare sympathy for the criminals. They will deserve their end”
As we filed out, Rahim called our contingent to one side.
“Mr Rhodes is staying at the hospital with his wife tonight, but she has asked to meet you all tomorrow. Please do not leave your hotel. Guards will be in place at your rooms”
Candice, for once, looked honestly puzzled, and Rahim noticed.
“These are not the only men involved, nor are they likely to be the most powerful. We will fly you back to Singapore after we have taken your depositions. I do not want the bad people to have an opportunity to harm you. Now, my men here have your paperwork…”
So it went, and I had to get used to having two armed men outside my hotel room door. The food was local, it was of necessity room service, and there was nothing stronger than Coke to drink, but, shit, what a result. I surprised myself by sleeping part of the night, but kept jerking awake from a repeating nightmare where the sound if the spades was radically and terrifyingly different, more like a butcher’s cleaver hitting home.
We were driven to the airport the next day in military vehicles, as if they were in urgent need of washing us off their hands, and it was one of their aircraft that took us to a different airfield in Singapore, somewhere military. The flight gave us enough time to ourselves to start the process of normalisation that follows a heavy case, which meant meeting Maz, who was still accompanied by the child, now fast asleep across a row of seats.
Rape as well as slavery, then. Police, professional: smile for the victim, Sutton.
Maz was clamped to her man, both of them still wide-eyed in surprise, Maryam horribly thin beneath what had been rags and dirt and was now a loose shift dress. Far too much of her was bruised, far, far too much. Bobby had been chatting with her, all smiles and tenderness, and as I sat down near them, he grinned at me.
“My lot have extracted their bloody digit! Ish is already in the air heading for Changi, and Audrey’s bringing him, apparently on the instructions of the fabled Mrs Chao. Seems you weren’t as sneaky as you thought, Gary”
That man laughed, and as he did, Maryam pointed at me.
“Which one are you, my love?”
“Detective Sergeant Sutton, Serious Crime review Unit. South Wales Police Heddlu De Cymru”
I grinned, then added ‘Di’, before naming Lexie and Candice.
“Lexie’s a friend of Alys and Enfys”
“Oh! I had almost forgotten! What happened to the girls, darling?”
Mike kissed her cheek.
“They got married, love. To each other”
“Oh again! I must sound like a stuck record. And Lexie? My lover here says you did great things for Neil”
Our girl actually blushed.
“Not really; I just pushed him onto our team. Di and Candice did the actual work”
Bobby interrupted.
“Ish is on his way to our landing site now, folks—oh, shit, Maz!”
She was in tears again, which was hardly a bloody surprise, but I could feel the plane starting down.
“Please sit near me, Di. Andy tells me it was your insight that found us”
“Teamwork, Maz. It was another of the team that gave me a clue, anyway”
“I can still say thank you, though”
“Granted. Anyway… I don’t want to put my foot in it, but the girl?”
“My daughter? What about her? Oh! No. I wasn’t raped, because Suleiman said I was unclean. It was… No. I will go through that when we are all home, all safe. Not now. Diane, are you married?”
“Yes. We have a son, Rhodri”
“I also have a son, Ishmael. He arrived almost by accident, but we have never regretted that. I… The last time I… My husband… The last time we made love was before I flew to KL, and I said, no, no protection. That was when our daughter was conceived, and the only thing I regret is that her early years were how you saw. Could someone please make sure she is awake and fastened in?”
Bobby shot back to secure her, and returned just as the seatbelt light came on. We rocked a little until we hit the tarmac, and then we were taxiing up to a very drab building.
They brought a wheelchair for Maz, which meant some faff with a scissors lift, but we were eventually all off and rolling, and then a young man was showing no emotional restraint at all. Eventually, the tears eased, her two men kneeling on either side of the chair as a confused little girl’s eyes flicked from one to another, until Maz brought her son to her with a one-armed hug.
“Darling?”
“Yes, Mum?”
“This is your little sister. Her name is Carolyn”